


agape

by slytherintbh



Series: halcyon days [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Seine, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 04:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12523040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherintbh/pseuds/slytherintbh
Summary: Jean Valjean goes away for two weeks and Javert finds that he enjoys solitude far less than he remembers. There is much joy when they are reunited.





	agape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daydreamingatnight](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=daydreamingatnight).



> a gift, which channels all the ridiculousness of long distance relationships and how dang nice it is to see the person you love after waiting

Valjean going to visit Faverolles had, initially, been Javert’s idea, although he has grown to regret it.

Two months of planning had gone into the trip. Late winter was not ideal for travel, so it had been agreed that they would go in April, when the worst of the cold was over. Javert could not take the time off work. They were already eyeing him warily after his outburst of ‘concern’ in his ill formed suicide note a few years before, no longer  _ quite _ trusted to stay on the right side of his superiors if his morals cried foul. So, he stayed. Instead Valjean took Cosette and the baby and disappeared for the first two weeks of April.

At first the silence is pleasant. Work is far easier when a bored Valjean is not hounding you for conversation or canoodling. Javert happily sits up late into the night with case files and toils. Hours later he wakes, face plastered to a picture or a report, and scowls. Usually Valjean shakes him when he starts to lag in his work and forces him to go to bed.

Within a few days the peace grows unnerving. Where is the constant postulating that feeds through the walls, Jean acting preacher even when there is nobody to listen? How is it that, after a life of solitude, Javert’s bed feels suddenly empty? No hands move to rub his back or press kisses into his hair when stressed. No roughened voice mutters suggestions into his ear that he pretends to find scandalous and secretly enjoys.

“Are you quite alright?” Dubois asks one morning, glancing over Javert’s imperfect attire. Letting Valjean do his hair for so long means that Javert has to relearn the knack. It is harder than he remembers. “You seem – a little pent up, Inspector.”

“I am fine,” Javert growls. This is a lie. He proceeds to spend the next hour shouting at the useless new recruits, and feels much better for it.

After a week, he is miserable.

What has this blasted saint  _ done _ to him? For 50 long, monastic years he has lived in contented solitude, needing nobody, virtuous in his celibacy. Well – so much for  _ that. _ At his desk he frequently finds himself daydreaming about the crinkle of Valjean’s eyes when he smiles, or the gentle sighs he sets free when they kiss. The latter makes him shuffle unhappily and hide a schoolboy’s blush.  _ Damn and blast.  _ He appalls himself. He holds his mind very carefully on the subject of this more chaste act and dares not follow it further, hearing only distantly the inevitable creak of the mattress and the drumming of his own heart.

Judging by the sodden figure that appears on his doorstep that weekend, Marius is also feeling rather lonesome.

This does not please the inspector. Javert does not like Marius very much. Tolerates him, certainly, recognises him as a person of some status and maybe half a brain. He would never seek the boy out on purpose. He gets the impression that the feeling is mutual (perhaps for different reasons) until he has to invite the young Baron into number 55 and make him a pot of tea. Conversation is stilted and terrible and Javert is sure that Marius just wanted company of any kind that wasn’t his grandfather. Eventually the boy gets to talking of Cosette and the baby and that suffices to take up his attention for the few hours he is there.

In any case.

Valjean is coming back today.

Everything in the house is perfectly ordered. Even without Toussaint cleaning for them, Javert has hardly struggled to neaten up their living space. They are two old men. The only things that frequently get moved about the place are the plates and cutlery and whichever books Valjean is currently using to prove some point of theology. Few have been scattered about, and focusing upon their presence makes Javert weep, much to his horror. Marks of a person not currently there – what could be more trying? It is pure foolishness, in a few hours he will see the man in the flesh, and yet the mighty inspector swipes at his eyes and reverently returns the tomes to their respective places.

He stands impatiently on the street. They are due in a quarter of an hour, yet Javert is already out there waiting in the gathering darkness. Just in case. It wouldn’t do for the fiacre to arrive early and for Jean to think that his arrival is not anticipated!

A breeze dances over Javert’s hands and he shivers.

Will Jean be tired when he arrives? Javert hopes not, rather selfishly. His hunger for affection is abnormally overpowering. Usually he indulges Valjean, always more than willing yet still the less amorous of the two. Now he is verging on desperate. God has given them one another; surely they were fools to ever have parted.

Anticipation runs riot in his gut. He almost feels nauseous. None of it comes across in his stern expression, yet internally he nurses his craving. Will Cosette stay long? No, Marius is going quite spare without her, and she no doubt is equally lost without him. Lovesick fools, the lot of them. Javert shakes his head. Valjean is at fault, somehow. Were he not such a stainless man and had Cosette not taken after him then Javert and Marius wouldn’t be left chasing at their heels, lucky enough to be loved in return.

A horse and carriage turn the corner and Javert jumps involuntarily in excitement. It does not linger, however, passing him by without pause. He frowns. How long has it been? Almost fifteen minutes. Surely. He checks his pocket watch. It has been five.

Javert languishes in his impatience.

Turtling up into his collar, he huffs. Perhaps he should have worn a hat. It is not terribly improper not to bring one, as he is travelling no further than the road by the gate, and  _ yet… _ Lack of full attire makes him antsy. Antsier. Wind sifts through the grey hairs on his scalp and pretends to be fingers, sending a mortifyingly pleasant shiver down his spine. By God, will it ever end? Javert hopes that Valjean has enjoyed his time, if only to make up for the suffering that is being undergone in Paris by one certain policeman. What is there to do in Faverolles anyway? He never asked. Provincial areas such as that have never appeared interesting. No crime to solve, just patchwork hills rolling over land, farmers living hand to mouth. Better place to be born than a prison, though.

Just as Javert is about to hit his head against the wrought metal of the gate another fiacre appears, turning onto the cobbles of the street at precisely the designated time. Javert is unaccountably unnerved. Rarely does excitement come without being connected to the chase.

The carriage stops outside of the gate. Cosette climbs out of the door nearest to him and nods in greeting, careful to hold the baby close as she rights herself. There is a moment of motion from behind the cart –

Valjean appears, clutching two large suitcases as easily as one would a letter.

He looks well. His tanned skin has darkened in the open sun of the fields, white hair settling comfortably against it, eyes bright and alive. Everything that Paris leeches out of a person – vitality, colour, comfort – is restored to him in full. The curls on his head and the build of his body amount to a fine Grecian statue. Only - alive, by some work of the Lord.

Javert’s mouth goes dry. It is as though he is meeting a stranger. Only once he has finished with his staring does he realise that Valjean is looking directly back at him, expression inscrutable.

“It is good to see you, dear Javert.” Cosette pauses and bounces the baby. “I take it you are well?”

Not wanting to avert his eyes, he manages to turn aside for a moment and answer. “Very, Madame. And yourself and Jeanne?”

“We are quite fine. I think she enjoyed herself very much!” With a bright laugh, Cosette gestures for the driver to wait a moment and watches Valjean arrive. Valjean, who is still looking at Javert with uncommon directness. “It makes sense that Papa grew up there, the place suits him well.”

“I would like to see it one day.”

“You must,” Valjean says. His attention is dizzying Javert’s senses. “It is good to see you, Javert.”

“We shall all go together, someday,” Cosette promises.

Something is quite strange about this. When Cosette speaks, it naturally follows that Valjean clings to her every word, taking obvious delight in the sweetness and beauty of his daughter, a besotted father if there ever was one. Now he seems not to truly notice her. Javert feels quite bare under his gaze. “It is good to see you too,” he replies. The voice that speaks is far from his own, rough with need.

“Well, I shall be going.” Hitching her skirts, Cosette presses a kiss to her father’s cheeks, which he acknowledges after a great internal struggle. “Marius will be missing me.”

“Certainly that,” Javert mutters.

“Take care, my child.” Jean hugs his daughter and chucks Jeanne under the chin, watching absently as they board the fiacre and disappear down the street.

And then he and Javert are alone.

For a long moment they simply behold one another. While Javert still can’t read Valjean’s gaze, there is something of adoration in it. Perhaps the same need that is surely evident in his own face.

“I have missed you so,” Javert confesses, quietly.

“It was an agony,” Valjean replies, dropping the cases to press Javert to the gate and kiss him. Javert makes a noise of surprise but not displeasure, only pushing away when the whirls of metal dig too strongly into his back.

“We are in  _ public –“ _

“Nobody is going to see. God above,  _ let _ them see, for I have such need of you –“ Valjean breathes in one heavy breath. “Okay, allow me to place these cases somewhere.”

They enter the garden. Birds flitter through the branches above their heads and Javert is in paradise, his whole self enraptured by the knowledge that Jean Valjean is walking beside him and wears a matching blush, dark gaze burning into the black of his greatcoat. His mouth feels branded by the force of the kiss.  _ And he will do such a thing again, _ Javert thinks,  _ and again, and far more besides. _

They enter the house with joint trepidation. The suitcases are abandoned at the inside of the doorway. They pause. Valjean is suddenly shy.

“Never leave me again,” Javert whispers. He does not mean for the words to be so sincere, nor for them to reveal so much of his heart, but the tremors in his chest are impossible to ignore. “I cannot abide it.”

For a moment, Valjean does not reply. “I thought of you constantly,” he finally says, soft as the new material of his coat. “It was a torment.” He looks Javert dead in the eyes; Javert is paralysed by the absolute honesty of them. They are hungry. One hand shifts to unbutton Javert’s greatcoat and push it away unassisted. A mound of dark wool crumples to the floor, ignored by them both.

“You were supposed to be thinking of your past,” Javert says, although he struggles to find the air to vocalise his thoughts. “That was the point.”

“Why think of the past when I have you waiting in the future? It was relaxing, my body is soothed, yet my mind is taut.” Valjean divests himself of his own coat and pulls Javert into the main room, standing them in front of the fireplace; he notes indiscreetly the presence of the settee close by. “Do you want to know what I did these past two weeks?”

Valjean’s tone makes Javert flush, unaccountably warm despite the lack of fire in the grate. “Of course.”  

“I went on walks. I helped with the farming. I climbed the trees. I read meaningless novels and talked endlessly with Cosette, we both looked after little Jeanne.” Fingers slowly trail from Javert’s temple down to his jaw and further down to his cravat. “That wasn’t what I was thinking about, though. I was distracted the whole time.”

“Oh?” It is barely a word, more a laboured hum.

“I thought of you,” Valjean mutters, partway to wistful. “I wanted to be here, talking to you about the law or bothering you into taking a night off. I believe I have pushed myself into an obsession with kissing you, and feeling you, and listening to every sound you make.” His hands trail through Javert’s hair, massaging his scalp and making him shiver at the delightful sensation.

“I was the same,” Javert says helplessly. “It has made work impossible.”

“I adore you,” Valjean whispers. “You have taken possession of my whole self.”

“Then may I take?” Javert asks. He has ardour in place of his blood, his heart beats it into every vein until he fairly trembles at it.

“God, please,” Valjean mutters, and then falls silent, tugging at Javert’s hair as they kiss, pulling the ribbon away and letting it loose. He hums in satisfaction. Javert cannot think anything other than  _ finally finally finally _ , steering Valjean onto the settee and propping him up against the raised armrest. White curls shape themselves around his fingers. He is in heaven.

“I love you,” he says, in between kisses. “Every part. Please, let us never be parted –“

“If it is God’s will,” Valjean gasps. “I pray it is so.”

For a moment, Javert buries his face into Valjean’s neck, breathing him in, feeling the addictive warmth of that holy body against his. Truly, he will never want for more – he hears tell of men who take dozens of lovers and he cannot comprehend it. Desire for this one man alone is nigh impossible to endure. Perhaps that is simply how love is when one is enraptured with an angel made man.

“Let me give you everything,” he mouths against Valjean’s neck, mind racing at the stuttered breaths he hears.

“You know I could never deny you,” Jean finally replies, wrought with delight.

True to his word, he takes everything that Javert offers him, and offers himself in equal measure.

*

Javert is surprised when he wakes on the settee.

It is unusual that they should fall asleep here. On most nights they at least manage to stumble up the stairs and fall into bed. Indeed, he is rather cold, with only a thin sheet over his shoulders, a sheet that he plucks away and finds is a shirt.

Ah.

Valjean snores happily next to him. While the settee is truly too small to fit two decently sized men, they have learned how to slot together even in sleep, filling in the gaps to create one whole. Great peace has overtaken Javert’s soul. He has needed this. No doubt his colleagues will be relieved to find that his black mood has been soothed, although they will struggle to guess the cause.

In place of passion he finds that calmer love. Quiet adoration. He watches the subtle rise and fall of Jean’s chest, appreciates the flutter of his lashes as he is slowly loosened from his dreams. No nightmares have plagued either of them tonight.

Eventually, Jean opens his eyes.

“Hello,” he croaks, smiling. “How are you this fine morning?”

“Very well,” Javert says. He marvels at the grin this produces.

Valjean grasps Javert’s hand. “I am glad to hear of that.”

“I am glad you are here,” Javert echoes. He thinks that he will be glad to be interrupted in his work today. It sounds delightful.

  



End file.
